Oil Under Troubled Water

Charged, with Witness K, for allegedly breaching the Intelligence Services Act, Bernard Collaery provides the whole sordid backstory to Australian politics' biggest scandal'.

In May 2018 Bernard Collaery, a former Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory and long-term legal counsel to the government of East Timor, was charged by the Australian Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions with conspiracy to breach the Intelligence Services Act 2001. He was forbidden from talking about the charges against him, but under parliamentary privilege independent MP Andrew Wilkie revealed what has since been described as 'Australian politics' biggest scandal'.

Five years earlier, after ASIO officers raided Collaery's home and office, Collaery told journalists that ASIS had been bugging the East Timorese government during negotiations over Timor Sea oil. He was about to represent East Timor; as well as calling the evidence of a former senior ASIS agent known publicly only as Witness K, at The Hague in a case against the Australian government.

Oil Under Troubled Water relates the sordid history of Australian government dealings with East Timor, and how the actions of both major political parties have enriched Australia and its corporate allies at the expense of its tiny neighbour and wartime ally, one of the poorest nations in the world.

• Shortlisted, 2021 ACT Book of the Year

About the Author

Bernard Collaery is an Australian solicitor and barrister who specialises in litigation in high-profile catastrophic personal injury cases. He has acted for families of victims of the Thredbo landslide, the Royal Canberra Hospital demolition tragedy, the Glenbrook rail disaster in the Blue Mountains, the fire aboard HMAS Westralia and the tragic loss of an RAAF F111 in the South China Sea.

Throughout his career as a solicitor, advocate and politician Bernard has been a fearless advocate for human rights. During his tenure as Attorney-General for the Australian Capital Territory, he introduced an independent law reform process that culminated in the drafting of human rights legislation, including anti-discrimination legislation.

Bernard Collaery advised the East Timor Resistance for more than thirty years, providing advice on international law and other matters during the United Nations Transitional Administration from 1999. He acted for East Timor at the International Court of Justice in relation to a maritime sea boundary dispute with Australia.

Currently Bernard Collaery is patron and honorary solicitor of various charitable and non-profit organisations serving Indigenous Australians and marginalised sectors of the community.